Terminology -WOTTIES (2) - Collins Dictionary 2020 shortlisted Words Of The Year

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

The Collins Dictionary shortlisted Words Of The Year (i.e., the runner-up WOTTIES) are no less interesting than the Word Of The Year, winner of them all. This year’s shortlist is predictably reflective of the COVID-19 pandemic, with selected terms such as coronavirus, keyworker, furlough, and self-isolate. 

However, the Collins shortlisted 2020 WOTTIES also capture other key events that punctuated the year 2020. Events, such as those sparked by one too many horrifying police injustices, resulting in spontaneous social upheaval in support of Black Lives Matter (BLM). The shortlist also includes the unprecedented popularity of TikTocking doctors, reaching out to hundreds of thousands of teenagers with one-minute sex-education tips, also seen, dancing off the stress of 24-hour shifts at overcrowded, understaffed, and under-equipped, Intensive Care Units (ICUs). Even the neologism MeGxit, mapped on Brexit, referring to an unusual defection from the inner circles of the British Crown, was shortlisted.

Below, the Collins definitions for the 2020 WOTTIES shortlisted, together with the fabulously animated GIFs for BLM (Black Lives Matter), and for coronavirus (above), both directly imported from the Collins website.

• BLM abbreviation for Black Lives Matter: a movement that campaigns against racially motivated violence and oppression.  
  
• coronavirus: (noun) any group of viruses that cause infectious illnesses of the respiratory tract, including COVID-19.
• keyworker: (noun) an employee in a profession considered essential to the functioning society.
• furlough: (noun) a temporary laying-off of employees, usually because there is insufficient work to occupy them.
• social distancing: (noun) maintaining a certain distance between onself and other people in order to prevent infection with a disease.
• Tiktoker: (noun) a person who regularly shares or appears in videos on TikTok®.
• self-isolate: (verb) to quarantine oneself if one has or suspects one has a contagious disease.
• mukbang: (noun) a video or webcast in which the host eats a large quantity of food for the entertainment of viewers.
• MEGxit: (noun) the withdrawal of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex from royal duties.

Reference

Collins 2020 Word of the Year:  Shortlisted words - https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/woty

Terminology - WOTTIES (1) - Collins Dictionary 2020 Word Of The Year

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

Each year, Collins Dictionary of the English Language selects the Word Of The Year, referred to as the WOTY, an acronym that rhymes with “potty”. The Word Of The Year is selected, based on the significance of the recorded number of searches for a particular term, during the year. Unsurprisingly, this year’s WOTY is pandemic-related. 

Indeed, Collins’ 2020 WOTY is Lockdown, a word that logged more than one quarter-million queries, compared to just 4000, in 2019. A word, according to Shariatmadari, whose usage has also squarely migrated, from the domain of incarceration to public health (Shariatmadari, Nov. 10, 2020).

Collins' 2020 definition of the term lockdown is the following:

Lockdown:  the containment measure implemented by governments around the world to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. 

A second, 2020 definition of the term lockdown appears on the animated GIF for the winning WOTY, imported below, directly from the Collins website.  

References

The Collins Word Of The Year 2020 is ….. https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/woty  

Shariatmadari, D.  (Nov. 10, 2020) The year of the lockdown Collins Dictionary Language Lover’s Blog. https://blog.collinsdictionary.com/language-lovers/the-year-of-lockdown/

Nilda's Story on Thanksgiving 2020

 Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

 Four hundred years after The Mayflower, a commemoration year totally eclipsed by the COVID-19 pandemic, Nilda's story is a contemporary tale of immigration to the USA. WhileTheyWait.org is an organization founded by Brooklyn Defender Services, Raices Texas, ACLU SoCal, musicians Benny Blanco, Calvin Harris & Miguel, and filmmaker Jake Schreier. An organization dedicated to providing legal services, free of charge, and survival assistance "while they wait", to America's most disenfranchised, the approximately one million asylum-seekers. Asylum seekers with stories, like Nilda and her 2-year old son Keyden.  

Nilda's Story - A Film by Jake Schreier (Jan 2019)

Music by Benny Blanco, Calvin Harris & Miguel

 Another version of I found you

References

ACLU SoCal (American Civil Liberties Union) https://www.aclu.org/action/ 

Benny Blanco - https://open.spotify.com/artist/5CiGnKThu5ctn9pBxv7DGa

Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS) http://bds.org/ 

 

Calvin Harris - http://calvinharris.com/

Daramola, I. (Jan, 4, 2019) Benny Blanco, Calvin Harris, & Miguel Address Refugee Rights in “I Found You / Nilda’s Story” Video. The Spin. 

https://www.spin.com/2019/01/benny-blanco-calvin-harris-miguel-i-found-you-nildas-st 

Jake Schreier - Park Pictures - https://parkpictures.com/directors/jake-schreier

Miguel (Wikipedia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_(singer)

Raices Texas  https://www.raicestexas.org/

While they wait  https://www.whiletheywait.org/ 

Oh, gadget! The Stemoscope stethoscope

 Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

For a modest sum, you might purchase your own personal Stemoscope wireless stethoscope. No prescription or license required. According to UK medical student Youtube review, the Stemoscope is probably not medical-grade, simply because of the costs and red tape, associated with obtaining medical-device clearance (Burton, 2019; Ollie Burton). A comment, which suggests, together with the website’s M.D. review, that the device is powerful enough to pick up body sounds. However, this also means that the Stemoscope is a gadget that has not been cleared by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) in the USA, or equivalent agency elsewhere—except perhaps in China where the Stemoscope was apparently used, on an emergency basis, as a monitoring and safe auscultation device, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, in Wuhan (Stemoscope blog; Newscast). Emergency use, considering that. the use of classic stethoscopes with tubing becomes incompatible with the protection against infection afforded by the hazmat suits that medical professionals were required to wear.  

Still, in the US, such items as device accuracy and reliability, among many others, remain unapproved even if this sort of certified testing might have been performed during the R&D process. With these cautions in mind, the Stemoscope‘s brand name shares four letters “STEM” with a now-famous educational acronym (Hefferman, 2019): Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, where the device has found one of its niches.  

The Stemoscope is a wireless, Bluetooth®-enabled stethoscope device that pairs with a mobile device such as an Android or Apple smartphone. The mobile device, equipped with a dedicated app, processes and amplifies the sounds captured by the Stemoscope, in turn sending them to Bluetooth®-enabled, or wired, earphones. The Stemoscope app (see animated gif below) instructs on where to position the Stemoscope on your chest to listen to heart and lung sounds, and on your arm for blood pressure sounds. The app also enables storage of recordings for archiving, sharing, and emailing.

Two new apps, the PetStemo and BabyStemo, respectively enable users to listen to the heartbeats of their pets and baby in-utero. The Babystemo app also offers to record in-utero sounds for reassuring playback to newborn infants, or for sharing with family and friends. In other words, couples no longer need to wait for prenatal visits to hear their baby's heart beating.

Below, an animated gif of the Stemoscope app, together with images of two Stemoscope models: the Standard and the PRO. 

The more recent PRO version is able to pair directly with Bluetooth®-enabled earphones for listening to sounds, without recording; or to pair directly to Bluetooth®-enabled smartphone and PC for listening to sounds, without earphones. The PRO model also has a noise-canceling function, as well as longer battery life. Pink and blue-colored models of the standard version also exist.

References

Burton, O. (Sept. 15, 2019) Postgradmedic - Bluetooth Stethoscope!. Youtube video.   https://youtu.be/cKhAggJ-5qE

Hefferman, V. (Dec. 17, 2019) How we learned to love the pedagogical vapor of STEM. WIRED.   https://www.wired.com/story/how-we-learned-to-love-pedagogical-vapor-stem

Newscast (in Chinese with subtitles) Stemoscope use during the Wuhan COVID-19 crisis. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjU-YGSlgqo

Ollie Burton (website) -  https://ollieburton.com/

Stemoscope (website) - https://www.stemoscope.com/

Stemoscope (blog) Stemoscope in fighting COVID-19 disease. 

https://www.stemoscope.com/blog/

Oh, patents! EKO System AI-powered assisted diagnosis (5)

 Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

EKO’s wireless auscultation stethoscope and cardiac sensor not only capture body sounds that are transcribed by proprietary software into readable graphs and numeric data. The EKO System also comprises a patented AI-powered method of analyzing the sounds captured and transcribed, in view of assisting physician diagnosis. 

The EKO System AI-powered method of diagnosis assistance consists in comparing the body sounds recorded and transcribed from a patient with those stored in a database of prerecorded health conditions, using a combination of neural-network technology and proprietary machine-learning algorithms designed to update the database. Thus, the EKO System not only enables remote diagnosis within the anticipated context of telemedicine, for cost-effective delivery and continuity of care to remote and underserved populations, and within the unexpected conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic, it also sets itself apart by providing analysis of the sounds captured and transcribed wirelessly. An analysis of sounds captured and recorded, which returns a list of potential conditions, matching specific sample health conditions stored in the database. A list of conditions, including “regular”, presented in their order of likelihood, with or without the matching sound graphs extracted from the database, which the physician, in turn, can use to inform his or her diagnosis. 

The AI-powered  EKO System invention is recited in the utility patent US9973847B2, titled Mobile device-based stethoscope system. The invention recites the hardware and software components of the system, as well as the database architecture and segmentation of sounds, that together comprise the mobile-based stethoscope system, designed “to serve as a decision-support tool for physicians”. 

The matching database sounds are specifically recited for patient heart sounds. However, the scope of the invention extends to other body sounds captured by a stethoscope, such as respiratory or digestive sounds, which would then be compared and matched to a different and corresponding set of pre-recorded conditions, populating the database.

For anyone interested in listening to a variety of body sound conditions, the following videos are extracted from the EKO System sound Libary. The videos respectively provide sounds for heart and lung conditions, in particular: normal heart sound, atrial fibrillation and pericardial rub for heart conditions recorded via EKO Digital Stethoscope; crackles, wheezes and egophony for lung conditions recorded via  EKO Core Digital Stethoscope. 

Heart sound 

Lung sounds

The abstract of the EKO System AI-powered diagnosis assistance invention is included below.

A mobile device-based stethoscope system that transmits, records, and analyzes sounds to generate a list of matching conditions and facilitates easy attachment across various electronic medical record platforms and other means of communication. The invention is configured to allow the use of either an integrated wireless stethoscope, or an in-line adapter for a conventional stethoscope. Patient sounds are sent from the selected stethoscope head to the mobile device having a software application that allows for the analysis, attachment, and further manipulation of the data. [Abstract US9973847B2]

References

EKO Health https://www.ekohealth.com/  

Normal Heart Sounds - EKO  Digital Stethoscope

https://youtu.be/0dynySg42pY?list=PLiBut4FiEuZVRFZONVn1xTBUEps_oGRDT

Atrial fibrillation Heart Sounds - EKO  Digital Stethoscope                                              https://youtu.be/va5WiKZ2WCM?list=PLiBut4FiEuZVRFZONVn1xTBUEps_oGRDT

Pericardial rub Heart Sounds - EKO Digital Stethoscope                                                              https://youtu.be/-DB_8zyg9W8?list=PLiBut4FiEuZVRFZONVn1xTBUEps_oGRDT

Crackles Lung Sounds - EKO Core Digital Stethoscope                                                                https://youtu.be/kwltwuAPn1o?list=PLiBut4FiEuZVRFZONVn1xTBUEps_oGRDT

Wheezes Lung Sounds - EKO  Core Digital Stethoscope                                                           

 https://youtu.be/4hCuuF4n_m0?list=PLiBut4FiEuZVRFZONVn1xTBUEps_oGRDT

Egophony Lung Sounds  - EKO  Core Digital Stethoscope   https://youtu.be/E6VC1esEPcYlist=PLiBut4FiEuZVRFZONVn1xTBUEps_oGRDT

Terminology - The second (curfew) lockdown (reconfinement sous couvre-feu)

 Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

Beginning November 21, 2020 through December 21, 2020, California is on a curfew lockdown.  A curfew lockdown is a limited form of stay-at-home order where everyone, except essential workers, residing in the Widespread tier Purple-Alert counties has been ordered to stay-at-home, from 10 pm to 5 am the next morning (California All). Curfew lockdown measures were declared by Governor Gavin Newson on November 19, 2020, in an effort to beat the second rising curve of alarmingly high rates of COVID-19 infections, in California, and throughout the USA. Purple tier-alert counties are those counties where COVID-19 is widespread, measured as more than 7.0 cases recorded daily per 100k people, and more than 8% of the population is infected, in the whole county (California All).

In Europe, French President Emmanuel Macron ordered a new national lockdown on Oct. 28 through December 1, 2020 (Macron, Oct. 28, 2020). On the same day, October 28, in Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel defended new “soft” lockdown measures, effective November 2, for 1 month (Staff, DW, Oct. 28, 2020). Speaking on behalf of the coronavirus and to the coronavirus, the German Chancellor stated:

COVID-19 - ‘I’ve got the perfect host here. These people live all over the planet. They are globally networked and are social creatures, they can’t live without social contacts. They have a hedonistic inclination, they like to party, it couldn’t be any better.’

Humanity – ‘No, virus, have you learnt nothing from evolution? We humans have shown again and again that we are damned good at adjusting to difficult circumstances. We’ll show you that you have chosen the wrong host.’ (Merkel, quoted in Polternam, Oct. 29, 2020.)

In Italy and Spain, where respectively 46,464 and 41,688 deaths have been recorded,  new lockdown measures have also been ordered in an effort to slow the spread of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic (Tondo & Jones, Nov. 17, 2020).

On this day, November 22, 2020, The WHO Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) dashboard is posting a global pandemic infection rate of 57,882,183 confirmed infections, and 1,377,395 deaths.

On this day, in the USA,, the John Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center Dashboard is posting, 1,384,651 confirmed cases, and more than a quarter million deaths, specifically 256,163 (JHU CoronaVirus Resource Center).

Below, Kanye West’s Closed on Sunday (Chick fil-A) premiered on November 28, 2019. A video directed by Jake Schreier. 

 References

California ALL https://covid19.ca.gov/ 

California ALL - November 16 Color Tier Assignments per county.  https://covid19.ca.gov/safer-economy/#county-status  

Jake Schreier – Park Pictures. https://parkpictures.com/directors/jake-schreier

JHU - John Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center Dashboard.   https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

Kanye West – Lyrics  Closed on Sunday. https://genius.com/Kanye-west-closed-on-sunday-lyrics  

Limited Stay-at-home Order, November 19, 2020– State of California Health and Human Services, Department of Public Health.   https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/Pages/COVID-19/limited-stay-at-home-order.aspx

Macron, E. (Oct. 28, 2020) Nouvelles mesures de lute contre le COVID -19. Allocution télévisée.  Elysée.fr  https://www.elysee.fr/emmanuel-macron/coronavirus-covid-19

Polterman, P.  (Oct. 29) Merkel heckled by German MPs as she defends second 'soft' Covid lockdown. The Guardian.  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/29/merkel-heckled-by-german-mps-as-she-defends-second-soft-covid-lockdown

Staff (Oct. 28, 2020 ) Coronavirus: Germany to impose one-month partial lockdown. DeutscheWelle.   https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-germany-to-impose-one-month-partial-lockdown/a-55421241

Tondo, L (in Palemo, Italy) and S. Jones (in Madrid, Spain) (Nov. 17, 2020) Italy and Spain report highest daily Covid deaths of second wave. The Guardian.   https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/17/italy-spain-report-highest-daily-covid-deaths-second-wave   

WHO Coronavirus (COVID-19) disease dashboard. WHO.  https://tinyurl.com/y4hasba8

Terminology - Firsts (Premières)

 Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

Congratulations!

The 2020 US Presidential Elections subsume at least three significant firsts in US history.  

- Kamala Harris is the first female Vice President-elect, and the first female of East Asian and African descent ever nominated on a presidential ticket. Considering that 2020 is the year commemorating 100 years of US women’s right to vote, these firsts are a bit overdue. What is perhaps more important, as Harris put it in her victory speech, on Nov. 7, 2020, is the real possibility of female leadership, on a par with males, as no doubt envisioned by the suffragettes, during their long struggle to secure the right to vote. In Harris’ own terms:

“But while I may be the first woman in this office, I will not be the last, because every little girl watching tonight sees that this is a country of possibilities.”

 Addressing women and little girls, in particular, Harris further stated:

 "Dream with ambition, lead with conviction, and see yourselves in a way that others may not, simply because they’ve never seen it before." (Staff, Global News, Nov. 7, 2020)

- The most unsettling first of the 2020 presidential elections has been the incumbent’s refusal to concede, even claiming victory after 270 Electoral College votes had already been secured, and the Associated Press had called the election. Not to mention now, since 290 Electoral College votes are on record for the opposing party. A first that also appears overdue, although for reasons that differ from those that have prevented women from accessing the highest positions of decision-making. 

True, that all votes must be counted before an election can be certified, and that this year the counting took much longer, due to the record number of mail-in votes, topped with a recounting of votes in Georgia, all of which might conceivably explain the delay in conceding. True also, that the US Attorney General William Barr authorized US Attorneys to pursue “substantial allegations of voting irregularities” before the election results were certified, thereby reversing the US Department of Justice protocol not to pursue allegations of fraud until after an election is certified. An authorization that served to fully legitimize the incumbent’s right to immediately challenge the Election Results (Hymes, Nov. 10, 2020).

 However, it also appears that all of the lawsuits filed by the incumbent in six states, claiming irregularities in the counting process on Elections Day, were dismissed. Indeed, Judges, dismissed the lawsuits on the grounds of “insufficient evidence – just speculation, rumors or hearsay.” (Fahrenthold, et.al, Nov. 10, 2020). Finally, the incumbent’s own Law Offices across the country have also begun dropping their representation of the incumbent’s voting fraud cases, leaving little time for the election results to be overturned, before they are certified by the Secretaries of State of individual States, on November 23 (Gerstein, Nov. 13, 2020).

Meanwhile also, as early as November 7^th, international Heads of States from Germany, Great Britain, France, Ireland, Greece, Belgium, and most recently China and the Vatican, have been offering “Welcome! and "Welcome back!” congratulations for the projected winners of the November 3^rd Elections, thereby recognizing the Biden-Harris projected victory called by the AP (Quinn, Nov. 7 2020).  A situation, which the incumbent's opponent has warned could “reflect poorly on his legacy” (Greenwood, Nov 11, 2020), and that has led various critics to wonder whether, at the end of the day, the incumbent might not be tarnishing his own reputation (Bendix, Nov. 12, 2020).  

- A third significant first is the unfolding of the 2020 elections in a background of relentless hardship, arising with the first and now second waves of COVID-19 infections. A background, that prevents much of the joyful mass celebrations that usually accompany a peaceful transition of power. With European countries on a second major lockdown (Buchholz, Nov 5, 2020), a new mutation of the coronavirus found on mink farms in Denmark (Gorman, Nov. 8, 2020),  the US is not alone in registering a second wave of record-high increases in the number of COVID-19 cases. During the past week, an average of approximately 150,000 cases were recorded, representing a 76% increase in cases, compared to the two previous weeks. A long hard winter already looms with a total number of cases, in the US, approaching 11 million, and almost a quarter-million deaths. (Coronavirus Outbreak, Live Update, NY Times).

References

Bendix, T. (Nov. 12, 2020) Trump’s Legacy Is Already Tarnished, Stephen Colbert Says: Best of Late Night. The NY Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/12/arts/television/stephen-colbert-trump-legacy.html

Buchholz, K. (Nov 5, 2020) Europe back on lockdown. Statista.com.    https://www.statista.com/chart/23330/coronavirus-restrictions-europe-map/

Coronavirus Outbreak – Live updates – The NY Times.    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html

Fahrenthold, D. A.  et. al (Nov 10, 2020) Here are the GOP and Trump campaign’s allegations of election irregularities. So far, none has been proved. The Washington Post.    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-election-irregularities-claims/2020/11/08/8f704e6c-2141-11eb-ba21-f2f001f0554b_story.html

Gerstein, J.   (Nov. 13, 2020) - Another law firm bails out on Trump campaign. Politico.   https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/13/law-firm-drops-trump-campaign-436418

Gorman, J. (Nov. 8, 2020) Covid Infections in Animals Prompt Scientific Concern. The NY Times.   https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/08/science/Covid-virus-transmission-mink.html?searchResultPosition=2

Greenwood, M.   (Nov. 11, 2020) Biden says Trump's failure to concede is an 'embarrassment’. The Hill. https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/525351-biden-trump-failing-to-concede-is-embarrassment  

Hymes, C. (Nov 10, 2020) Barr authorizes U.S. attorneys to "pursue substantial allegations" of voter fraud.  CBS News.  https://www.cbsnews.com/news/barr-attorney-general-authorizes-attorneys-pursue-allegations-voter-fraud-election/

 Lockerd Maragakis, L. M.D., M.P.H (Aug 14, 2020) First and Second Waves of Coronavirus.  John Hopkins School of  Medicine.   https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/coronavirus/first-and-second-waves-of-coronavirus

Quinn, M. (Nov. 7, 2020) Foreign leaders offer well wishes to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris after projected win. CBS News. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/foreign-leaders-offer-well-wishes-to-joe-biden-and-kamala-harris-after-projected-win/

Staff (Nov. 7, 2020) U.S. election: Full text of Kamala Harris and Joe Biden’s victory speeches. Global News.  https://globalnews.ca/news/7449739/us-election-joe-biden-kamala-harris-speeches/

Terminology - Mini bilingual glossary for the 2020 US presidential elections

 Copyright Françoise Herrmann

Bilingual English<>French Election terminology was compiled while waiting for the 2020 US Presidential election suspense to subside, and for the election to be called, considering the biggest turnout ever, estimated at 66.9%, (Le Monde, 4 Nov. 2020).

Besides contesting the actual results of the vote, at issue is the record number of mail-in-votes, recommended as a measure for preventing further pandemic spread. States have different procedures for counting election day in-person votes, mail-in votes, and early votes, all of which impact the results of the vote, post-election day. 

In regards to the potential for mail-in voting fraud, mail-in voting (also called absentee voting) dates back to soldiers during the Civil War. A system that has gradually expanded to include:voters that were not in the military, initially requiring an excuse for not voting in person to obtain an absentee ballot, to absentee voting without an excuse, to all-mail voting options, permanent automatic mail-in ballot systems in five states Hawaii, Colorado, Oregon, Utah and Washington, and temporary automatic mail-in ballot systems in 22 states, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, in addition to other mail-in voting options nationwide that might involve having to request an absentee ballot (Waxman, 2020; Ballotpedia). In fact, election experts Charles Stewart III (MIT) and Amber McReynolds (U. of Illinois) found 0,00006% fraud out of 250 million votes cast in the US in the past 20 years. Their findings were based on an analysis of the Heritage Foundation's Voting Fraud Database, where they examined a  total of 1200 voting fraud cases, 204 of them involving fraudulent use of absentee ballots, resulting in 143 criminal charges, in 20 years. Findings that prompted both scholars to conclude that "Vote fraud in the United States is exceedingly rare, with mailed ballots and otherwise." (MIT SCHASS, 2020)

Precedence in presidential election disputes, such as the Bush v. Gore electoral dispute on recounting Florida votes, in the year 2000, was prompted by a different issue, concerning machines having missed votes (referenced as undervotes). The US Supreme Court [Bush v. Gore 531 U.S. 98 (2000)] granted a stay on recounting votes (by hand) (7:2), following an order to manually recount votes by the Florida Supreme Court, thereby reiterating the Bush victory.  

Incidentally, as some people might recall, the star election terminology item, arising in 2000 within the Florida context of recounting votes, was a small piece of paper called the "chad" (translated as "confetti" in French). A "chad" is the little piece of paper that creates a hole when a voting card is punched, using Votomatic-style punched ballots. Improperly torn chads, called "hanging chads", or "swinging chads" (see Ballot Card image for variations), gave much grief to those folks responsible for then manually recounting votes in Florida, in 2000 during an interim period of time, post-election day and prior to the US Supreme Court decision.

English	Français
incumbent	candidat au pouvoir, sortant, titulaire
challenger	candidat de l’opposition, opposant, adversaire
ballot	le scrutin
poll (station/booth)	les urnes
to flip balance of power	faire basculer l’équilibre du pouvoir
Electoral College	Collège électoral
battleground State	État champs de bataille
swing/flip state	État-pivot, qui oscille, État-bascule, État disputé
Bellwether state	État-baromètre (vote tjrs pour le vainqueur)
to count (votes)	dépouillement des votes, dépouiller (vb.)
to have a lead	mener (vb.)
concession call/speech	appel/discours de concession/ de défaite
designated survivor	successeur désigné
gerrymandering	charcutage électoral
landslide	victoire écrasante
PAC ( Political Action Committee)	comité de soutien
winners	les vainqueurs
mail-in votes	votes par correspondance
to win an election	remporter (vb.) les élections
to call the election	déclarer le vainqueur

References

Ballotpedia

https://ballotpedia.org/All-mail_voting

Bush v. Gore 531 U.S. 98 (2000)

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/531/98/
Le Monde  (4 Nov. 2020) Elections américaines 2020 : ce que l’on sait et ce qu’on ignore encore. https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2020/11/04/election-presidentielle-americaine-ce-que-l-on-sait-et-ce-qu-on-ignore-encore_6058473_3210.html 

MIT SCHASS - Let's put the vote-by-mail 'fraud' myth to rest. Excerpt, The Hill, April 28, 2020. https://shass.mit.edu/news/news-2020-pandemic-voting-mail-safe-honest-and-fair-stewart

Slate. fr.  - Glossaire de termes intraduisibles de la politique américaine.http://www.slate.fr/monde/61285/glossaire-mots-politique-americaine-surrogate-pac-earmark-swing-state

Waxman, O. B. (Sept. 28, 2020) Voting by Mail Dates Back to America’s Earliest Years. Here’s How It’s Changed Over the Years. Time.com

https://time.com/5892357/voting-by-mail-history/